Cntd.from the last post:
Devotee : What is avidya ?
Sri Bhagwan : Ignorance of Self. Who is ignorant of the Self ? The self must be ignorant of the Self. Are there two selves ?
Talk—263
No. There is one Self. So, who is ignorant ? No one. Therefore, Sri Bhagwan says that avidya is like maya. However, she who is not is maya. That which is not is ignorance. Hence, the question of ignorance does not arise. Sri Bhagwan says that ‘nevertheless, the question is asked’. Whose avidya? Of the ego-I who is not. Only ‘I’, the Self exists. Only the Self is. Ego-‘I’, Anil, does not exist in the first place. It is mere fleeting appearance. Even its appearance is not continuous. A new ‘I’ rises with every new thought and dies with it. It is obvious enough that ‘I’ cannot be that ever appearing and disappearing imagination or images. I intuitively know that ‘I am’ ever present. Thoughts are coming and going away—I am present. I am sleeping—I am present. I am waking—I am present. I am dreaming—I am present. Nevertheless, the ego-mind is obstacle to the Realisation. But I am not the mind. ’I am’ the seer of the mind which is only a bundle of thoughts. I am not bundle of thoughts. Sri Bhagwan says, “I AM THAT I AM.” Mind silenced, Mouna ,‘I am’, revealed. Silence alone remains. Witness as Presence alone is—Eternal, Infinite and All-pervading. That I am. Silence.
Dear devotees,
Maya is generally defined as illusion and the power that creates and sustains the illusion. But Sri Bhagwan says that it is wrong to regard maya as something real that created and sustained illusion. In the Self maya does not and cannot exist but, paradoxically, at the same time it arises from within the Self and brings in appearances and phenomena. Sri Adi Shankara also said that the maya does not exist and therefore all her apparent creations are illusory, mithya. Here a problem arises because the Great Upanishads say that all is Brahman. However, Sri Shankara also accepts that this world is Brahman. He only said that the world does not exist apart from the Brahman or the Self. So, seeing the body and the world and assuming that the Self is limited to these names and forms alone which constitute the world, is certainly illusory, mithya.
“When it is established [by experience of the Sages and by the words of the scriptures] that Heart [Self], the form of perfect knowledge [Jnana], is the only real Thing, is not this [so called] great Maya a mere myth ? Then how strange is the opinion [held by some]that Self [or Brahman] is deluded by the bite of this serpent , the mind maya !”
V. 597, GVK, tr. Sri Sadhu om
Thank you,
Anil